On Fri, Jun 04, 2010 at 08:35:38PM -0400, John Van Ostrand wrote:
> Digital locks could make a hostage of your own content. At least without
> a anti-circ law I could legally reverse engineer it and get my data. With
> such a law, does the Open Office .DOC compatibility become illegal?
I don't think so:
41.1 (1) No person shall
(a) circumvent a technological protection measure within the
meaning of paragraph (a) of the definition "technological
protection measure" in section 41;
Then:
41.12 (1) Paragraph 41.1(1)(a) does not apply to a person who
owns a computer program or a copy of one, or has a licence to
use the program or copy, and who circumvents a technological
protection measure that protects that program or copy for the
sole purpose of obtaining information that would allow the person
to make the program and any other computer program interoperable.
To my understanding (I am not a lawyer, mumble, mumble), that seems to
clear a Word user who wanted to port his documents to OpenOffice, even
if Microsoft added DRM to .DOC files.
But I'm not sure if that user could then upload his "fix" to OpenOffice
and share it with others, since the 41.12 (1) exception only seems
to apply to 41.1(1)(a) and not 41.1(1)(b) which says:
(b) offer services to the public or provide services if
(i) the services are offered or provided primarily for
the purposes of circumventing a technological protection
measure,
(ii) the uses or purposes of those services are not
commercially significant other than when they are
offered or provided for the purposes of circumventing
a technological protection measure, or
(iii) the person markets those services as being for
the purposes of circumventing a technological protection
measure or acts in concert with another person in order
to market those services as being for those purposes; or
I'm glad I'm not a lawyer.
- Chris